


Patchwork Family

by Alterius



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ever At Your Side Zine, Fluff, Gen, World of Ruin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 22:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20478653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alterius/pseuds/Alterius
Summary: Taking care of Talcott was a big enough job before the world was thrust into everlasting darkness.





	Patchwork Family

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! This was written for the lovely [Ever At Your Side](https://twitter.com/atyoursidezine?lang=en) zine. I hope you enjoy this little piece of makeshift family fluff.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Words are hushed, audible only to Prompto and she doesn’t need to clarify her meaning for him to catch it. Her gaze is set on Talcott, who’s rushing from one place to the next, doing his utmost to help anyone and everyone that might need it. 

This is proof that he’s a good kid, though he’d known as much from their first meeting. Someone that collects cactuar statuettes surely can’t have a mean bone in his body, and that was ultimately what led to the two of them there, seated to take a breather away from the tumultuous chaos that was the apocalypse.

“About Talcott,” he says, though he already knows that’s the case. He’d be hard-pressed _ not _ to know.

“How am I supposed to _ raise _ him in a world like _ this _?” she says, every word dripping with a fear and regret he’s become excruciatingly familiar with since last the sun set.

Even as she asked a question that would have been anything _ but _ simple even when they lived in Insomnia, Prompto could only hazard a guess as to how long they’d been living like this. 

He’d relied on his phone, at first, then voodoo when it had died shortly after. 

Hard to keep a phone charged when just keeping the lights on is a miracle on its own. 

“Jared’s _ gone _ , Talcott’s _ depending _on me, but I—”

“Hey,” Prompto says, interrupting chaotic thoughts that he knew all too well would spiral into a dark, self-loathing that he was all too familiar with. He’d gone off on similar tirades when he was her age over far less. “You don’t have to do it alone, you know.”

When she meets his gaze, it’s with watery eyes, tears seconds from falling. Barely a week ago, this would’ve launched him into a small panic attack—which was just a step above the hyperventilating, stomach-lurching kind he would’ve had a few years ago.

Then again, not twenty-four hours ago, it would’ve only been a matter of time before Gladio had come rushing over, demanding to know what he’d done or said to make his baby sister cry.

Nobody was going to question why she was now, when the answer was so obvious.   


“Thank you,” Iris says and her lip wobbles and her voice shakes and his heart breaks at the sight of just another poor kid, wrapped up in this hell created by one man—a man that Prompto had wanted desperately to trust. 

“I’ll help you,” he says, affirming what she might have not been so ready to assume, wrapping an arm around her, jostling her lightly. A single action elicits a laughter so bright that he questioned for a moment the validity of the night’s permanence. 

“We’ll do it together.”

* * *

“You can't.”

“But Iris—”

“You can't!” Her voice raises, voice heightening to an octave that draws the attention of friends and strangers alike. 

Iris knows without needing to be told that she’s crossed an unspoken boundary, that the way Talcott finds more interest in the ground than meeting her gaze is a sign that she needs to take a deep breath, take a step back and be _ reasonable _ in this discussion. But she can’t find it. She can’t find a _ reason _beyond her own selfishness, her own fear that something might happen to him once he’s beyond her reach.

Only one finds the courage to approach the two of them, to lay a hand on her shoulder. The grip is familiar—_ grounding _—and she knows before she meets his gaze to expect violet eyes staring back at her. 

It was rare for Iris to raise her voice, especially where Talcott was concerned. He was a good kid; he always had been. The issue this time lay with her, a woman too afraid of how quickly Talcott was being thrust into adulthood by a world as unforgiving as it was dark. 

“You guys okay?” 

His voice is older, brimming with exhaustion that speaks volumes of the stress he never speaks of. Still, he carves time out of his schedule to check on them. He musters the energy he doesn’t have to ensure their safety and happiness—whatever they can find in these days, considering. 

Answering him verges on impossible, though. How can she phrase her discontent without sounding like a woman trying to hold back someone that wasn’t even her son? More often than not, she desperately wished Jared were still here, but times like these only emphasized that loss, no matter how much time had passed.

“Prompto,” Talcott says, cutting through the silence Iris seems so keen on. “I’m thirteen now. I want to help out at Hammerhead.”

Every word is chosen with care, much like how Jared had taught him over half a decade ago, when Noctis was still here and people weren’t losing faith that their king would return with every day that passed without him.

His gaze moves from Talcott back to her, glazing over her as though he’s looking beyond what’s visible on the surface. 

“He… _ does _ know how to use a gun, Iris. He's a good shot. I should know; I still got the scar...”

His words are punctuated by a half-hearted laugh that proves more telling than anything that’s come out of Iris’s mouth in recent memory. 

“I know, I just—” she says, cutting herself off to wring her hands that grow clammy at the prospect of sending Talcott out alone into a world wrapped in impenetrable darkness, no matter how good a shot he might be.

And she knew he was. She did. After all, she’d been there when Talcott had nailed Prompto in his dominant shoulder about a year back. Being defenseless was far from a concern, if Prompto’s continued struggle with his shoulder was anything to go by. Talcott was anything _ but _weak, arguably stronger than anyone she’d known, bouncing back from Jared’s death at a pace she’d struggled to match. 

With an idol like Noctis and a role model like Prompto teaching him to survive this godforsaken world, his odds were far better than most.

“Can you give us a minute, Talcott?”

It’s one request with no additional explanation and Talcott doesn’t ask for one, moving a modest distance away to give them the space that Prompto asked for, though what she really _ needs _is to be talked through her anxiety by the one man among them that’s truly mastered it.

“You okay, Iris?” he asks, now that Talcott’s out of earshot. 

When she takes a breath, it’s shaky, as though the world might give out beneath her—and it just might. More than once, close calls had nearly left Talcott in the same situation he had been when Jared passed. 

Too many times had it nearly gone wrong when it was her or even Prompto, so what would happen to Talcott when he was far beyond their reach?

How many times had Cindy torn out of Hammerhead to track Prompto down when he’d been gone a few hours too many? How many times had Gladio pulled her from the thick of battle to keep a daemon from cutting her clean in half?

When she finally answers him, it’s far from the answer she’s used to giving. It’s not the stock affirmation most give when faced with that very question, especially in times like these when “okay” is a word that’s lost its definition. 

It was hard to be “okay” by older standards when everyday was a struggle to survive. 

“No,” she says, honest for what seems like the first time in months, genuine with one of the few people she can be just that with. “I’m _ scared _, Prompto.”

It doesn’t need to be said, she’s sure. There’s not a single doubt in her mind that he already knew as much, but two words still cause an eerie silence to fall over them. Years ago, a conversation so _ still _ with Prompto of all people would’ve been odd. 

Living in an everyday hell like they did, the quiet was reassuring more often than not. They’d gotten used to standing next to each other without sharing a single word spoken between them. 

As per usual, Prompto is the one who figures out how to phrase his response sooner than she can continue it. 

“Yeah, me, too.”

“If Talcott goes out there—” 

She stops herself, cuts off the train of thought that would no doubt spiral until she reached the worst possible conclusion. 

“I know,” Prompto says and he does. Prompto knows better than most what danger lurks beyond the boundary of Hammerhead. He knew even better than she did, given he was always the first to volunteer, whether it be for a rescue mission or a supply run. 

In truth, Iris shouldn’t have been surprised. With a role model like Prompto, she ought to have expected Talcott to bring this up soon enough.

“He’s gonna go out there one day, Iris,” Prompto continues, reminding her of another thing she should’ve known already. As long as she’s been praying for Noctis to return so that Talcott might escape this as unscathed as a boy living in a world like this could. 

But it seemed Noctis wasn’t coming to save her this time; he wasn’t coming to save anyone for a while, it seemed. 

They only had each other to rely on, it seemed.

“We need to help him be ready for it.”

“I wish you were wrong,” she says, finding his eyes and a weak smile spread across his face. It’s one that doesn’t quite meet his eyes nor match his words, but she chooses not to voice what is obvious.

He wishes he was wrong, too.

But he doesn’t fall back, doesn’t go back on his word nor suggest a way to get around what any parent would, even if she and Prompto couldn’t quite be called as much.

“Let’s go tell him the terrifying news!”

All she manages is a weak smile, filled with as much fear as Prompto’s own.

* * *

Selfish is how Talcott would best describe himself. Years spent hiding behind Prompto and Iris would do as much. The weight everyone else was pulling to hold keep themselves afloat until His Majesty’s return was a burden Talcott couldn’t yet understand.

But he wanted to. There was nothing he wanted more in the world than to chip in and pay back the days, hours, _ weeks _ invested in his safety when it would do so little for anyone else. 

So why then does wanting to partake make him feel _ worse _ ? Why does he feel as though he continues to _ take _ when he’s only requested to assist in their effort to survive? 

But that also begs the question: What purpose did he find in upsetting Iris today when they might be holding another funeral tomorrow? 

This is _ necessary _, though, and they all know it. It’s imperative that he learn how to survive in a world like this, one swathed in darkness, where he might not always be able to rely on Iris and Prompto.

Capable as they might be, they were human. 

Even the Astrals couldn’t protect them from this, so how could he continue putting that weight on two people that were his parents in all but blood? He needed to do more to pull his weight and contribute than cut Iris’s hair when daemon’s realize that grabbing a ponytail is effective. 

When he sees them approaching, he steels himself for a sharp refusal. So used to being told that he need to _ wait _ , though months of that same answer has long given him the impression that _ none of them _ know what he’s waiting for. But that’s precisely why he’s stunned into silence by the answer.

“Okay, Tal, you can help,” Prompto says and he feels a smile spread across his face, feels his hope heighten when Prompto mimics it. But his glee is tempered when Iris holds up one finger. 

Just one. They were applying a single condition. That’s better than the rulebook he was expecting and picking just one out of the myriad he thought might surface was too daunting a task to even attempt.

“We want someone with you.”

Talcott’s face falls and Prompto is quick to jump in, to elaborate before his spirit can be broken by the reminder that this is precisely how it had always been. He could help, provided he was well out of harm’s way.

“Just for a little while,” he adds, but that does little to alleviate the initial stress. “They’ll be your backup.”

It was worded differently than normal. He was to _ have _ backup, instead of _ being _the backup. It may not be what he wanted, but it was certainly a vast improvement and for that, he had to say something more than a simple agreement. 

“Thank you,” he says after a beat of silence that has been a mite more stressful for them than him. He watches as their eyes widen with surprise and when their mouths open and they try to speak, their sentences run together. 

_ “It's no big deal.” _

_ “I think it's scarier for us.” _

_ “I'm gonna go gray early, if you're out there on your own.” _

_ “We can't keep coddling you.” _

“That's not it,” he says and they pause in their ramblings, cutting themselves off though Talcott knew they could go back and forth for hours, paraphrasing each other because they were more in sync with each other now than he had known either of them to be with anyone else in his short life. 

“Thank you,” he begins again and this time, they wait patiently for him to finish, for him to say his piece. “Thank you for being there.”

He couldn’t have asked for better parents. 


End file.
